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January 2009 - Posts
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This year we’ll be releasing our top 25 list in conjunction with the people over at Bernie’s Crew,
which means the list is going to posted somewhat out of order to match
up with what Jim has for his Top 25. An up-to-date list of the Between the Green Pillars Top 25 can be found at the bottom of the page.
Jon
Lucroy / C / 6’0” 195 LBS / 6/13/86
It wasn’t long ago that prospect watchers knocked the Brewers inability to draft and develop catchers. That is all in the past, though, as the Brewers now have three potential major league catchers in their system. Jon Lucroy, taken out of the University of Louisiana-Lafayette in the third round of the 2007 draft, is perhaps the best bet of the three to be good enough defensively to stick as an everyday catcher in the long term. In fact, he is probably the most balanced position player prospect the Brewers have, which is why he’s so high on the list despite lacking any one exceptional tool.
From the moment he started in pro ball, Lucroy has hit the ball. In the Pioneer League in 2007 he posted a (.342/.383/.487/.871) line in 234 AB’s. The one thing that was lacking in that performance was homerun power (4), but he hit 18 doubles and 2 triples, so clearly there was some power at work there. That homerun power showed up in 2008, when Lucroy hit 10 HR in both Low and High A in roughly the same number of AB’s (239 in Low A and 236 at High A) which is quite an accomplishment considering how much harder it is to hit HR in the FSL than in the Sally league. In fact, considering park effects, it’s quite arguable that his (.292/.364/.479/.843) line a High A represented a step forward over his seemingly superior (.310/.391/.510/.901) line at Low A. Besides the improvement in homerun hitting, Lucroy also demonstrated an increased willingness to take walks. He is a polished hitter, not overly pull happy and able to handle whatever pitchers throw at him. There is always concern with catcher that the time they will have to put in on their defense will stunt their growth as a hitter, but Lucroy is showing no signs of that thus far. At this point, his offensive game appears to have a good shot at being league average or better for a catcher at the major league level.
Lucroy doesn’t have great defensive tools, but he’s made the best of what he does have. He’s reasonably athletic, but has an average arm, at best. He threw out 45% of base runners that attempted to steal on him, a remarkable number for a guy without a great arm and dealing with young pitchers not accustomed to preventing the stolen base. That leaves hope that he can use the arm he does have to prevent big league runners from going wild on him down the road. He made 8 errors and allowed 10 passed balls, neither of which is a good number and both need to be improved upon. Still, most feel that his leadership qualities and game calling ability will help make up for some of the shortcomings and he should be able to stick behind the plate as an everyday player.
Jon Lucroy is clearly the least talented player of the three catching prospects in the top 10 of this list. However, as I said before, he’s probably the most likely to actually stay at and play decently at the catcher position, so he gets nudged ahead of the other two for the time being. He’ll move up to AA this year and it will be interesting to see what that does offensively, especially power wise. If he continues to improve his footwork behind the plate and doesn’t see too big a drop-off in his CS rate over the next year plus, he could find himself in the majors playing regularly by the end of 2010.
Between the Green Pillars Top 25 Prospects:
# 25: Evan Frederickson
# 24: Cody Adams
#23: Alex Periard
#22: Brent Brewer
#21: Brad Nelson
#20: RJ Seidel
#19: Tim Dillard
# 18: Seth Lintz
# 17: Efrain Nieves
#16: Erik Komatsu
#15: Cody Scarpetta
#14: Omar Aguilar
#13: Cutter Dykstra
#12: Zach Braddock
#11: Caleb Gindl
#10: Jake Odorizzi
#9: Cole Gillespie
#8: Lorenzo Cain
#7: Brett Lawrie
#6: Taylor Green #5: Angel Salome
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I guess this would qualify as "old news" at this point, but I just found it so oh well.
Jayson Stark of ESPN.com recently talked with Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig on the state of the game, and they touched on a few issues near and dear to the hearts of Brewer fans. Here is a rundown of a few key points:
On the Yankee's spending spree:
Every club has to do what they have to do, and I'm very comfortable saying that. I'm proud of the system we have. I think we've had more competitive balance than we've ever had. And we have labor peace now through 2011. So I'll continue to watch what happens in the system and make my judgments at the appropriate time.
snip
The fact of the matter is, we've had, up till now, more competitive balance than we've ever had. So I want to continue to watch things. And I'll make very strong judgments, but at the appropriate time. And now is not the appropriate time.
snip
I'm proud of the current system. We went through a lot of travail, a lot of anguish, to get where we are today. And we have more than $450 million in revenue sharing. We had Milwaukee in the playoffs for the first time since 1982. Minnesota is very competitive. Obviously, we know the Tampa story. I think there are enough illustrations around to prove the point. However, nothing in life stays the same. And I will very carefully watch what goes on. But we have till 2011 to make those judgments.
That probably isn't going to earn him any fans amongst proponents of a salary cap, but there is a lot of truth to what Selig is saying. Baseball has a very long history of gross inequalities between the clubs in terms of revenue and spending. In the old days, the Yankee's still outspent just about everyone in scouting (which coupled with the reserve clause allowed them to build dynasties) and were quick to buy players from other clubs who no longer wished or were able to pay their salaries. What Selig has achieved in the vein of revenue sharing in his tenure shouldn't be ignored either, even if it still isn't enough.
If we take Selig at face value here, he is waiting for the "appropriate time" to address these issues. He does have a CBA running through the 2011 season, and perhaps he's ready to take on the big market owners again then and push for more revenue sharing. There isn't much hope for a salary cap, given the power the union wields and the willingness they have shown to allow the game to be shut down rather than accept one. It's hard to say what his intentions are at the moment and if his vague hints at action here will ever amount to anything. The pace of change in baseball has often been glacial, unless spurred on by necessity, so perhaps Selig is waiting for necessity to drive events in the next few years.
… You know, the one thing I always say to the clubs, and now I'll say it to you, is we are a social institution, and we have enormous social responsibilities. And so we have to always keep that in mind when we're operating the clubs and operating our sport…
This was in response to a point made about players salaries and the disconnect it creates with fans who may themselves be struggling to get by. It raises a larger question, though, and it would be interesting to see how far Selig wants to take this. What is baseball's responsibility to the fans? Is it simply the responsibility of a business to it's customers? If that team plays in a taxpayer financed stadium, does the team have additional obligations to the fans? Does the league have a fundamental responsibility to ensure equal opportunity for teams financially? The most sensational chapters of Selig's tenure as commissioner (94 WS being canceled, the steroid scandal) have already been written, and they'll loom large in how history remembers him. There is time, though, for him to leave a positive legacy that will not become fully realized until well after he is gone.
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This year we’ll be releasing our top 25 list in conjunction with the people over at Bernie’s Crew,
which means the list is going to posted somewhat out of order to match
up with what Jim has for his Top 25. An up-to-date list of the Between the Green Pillars Top 25 can be found at the bottom of the page.
Angel
Salome / C / 5’7” 200 LBS / 6/8/86
When a guy is referred to as the “pocket” version of a player like Ivan Rodriquez, generously listed at 5’9”, you know he isn’t very big. Angel “Pocket Pudge” Salome has overcome plenty of obstacles to get to the point where he is on the cusp of making the major leagues in some capacity. For him to take that next step, though, there are still some other things he needs to work on to become the Brewers’ everyday catcher. Drafted out of a Manhattan high school in the 5th round of the 2004 draft, Salome is very generously listed at 5’7”, which presents both advantages and disadvantages for his game.
The Brewers were careful with Salome early on, allowing him to play at both rookie levels. It was at Helena in 2005 that he first opened eyes with his production, posting a 1.142 OPS in 159 AB’s. He was promoted to low A later that year with less than stellar results, so he was sent back to West Virginia for the whole 2006 season and managed a .796 OPS before having his season cut short by a broken ankle. He was promoted to Brevard in 2007 and managed to improve his OPS to .806, despite moving from a hitter’s league to a pitcher’s one, before being suspended for 50 games for use of performance enhancing substances. Salome claimed it was a one-time thing, done to help him recover from the broken ankle in 2006, and so far there has been no sign of
further use.
Salome’s suspension carried over into 2008, which caused him to miss the about half of April. Once he was on the field, he had a true breakout season with the bat. Overall, he hit (.360/.415/.559/.973) with 30 2B, 2 3B and 13 HR in 367 AB’s. Besides upping his batting average to a phenomenal .360, he also boosted his walk rate a bit, to 8.3 percent, while only striking out 57 times. He was steady all year, posting a better than .800 OPS and hitting at least two HR in every month. Though he did hit LHP better than RHP, his OPS was still .953 against right handers, so there is little concern on that front. His walk rate is a tad low for a top-flight hitting prospect, but he’s been improving it over time to the point where it’s pretty
playable.
This is the paragraph where we talk about defense and position, which means it’s time for the inevitable bring down. Salome has the tools to be an above average catcher. He has a very strong arm, quick enough feet and his size isn’t a detriment. The problem is that he’s still very
underdeveloped in his skills as a receiver. He only caught 31 base stealers in 121 attempts, allowed 13 passed balls and made two errors. The Brewers saw with Jason Kendall in 2008 how much a difference a good defensive catcher can make over a bad one, and Salome at this point would be a major liability behind the dish. If Salome can’t stick as a catcher, there aren’t many options for him. He can’t play another defensive position due to his size, and his bat would hardly be special at DH.
The Brewers may have to hold Salome’s bat back a bit while they work on his defense behind the plate in AAA this season. Still, his combination of advanced hitting and good defensive tools make it totally plausible that he can improve enough to play everyday. Most teams hesitate to carry an offense-first catcher as a backup, but Salome could add value that way for a while too if the defense doesn’t enable him to play everyday. There is a very real chance that he could be passed up as the future everyday catcher by Jon Lucroy or Brett Lawrie in the next few years, though even if he does he’ll still have value either as a backup or in a trade. The best-case scenario for 2009 would be that he improves enough behind the plate and continues hitting well
enough that the team is forced to push Jason Kendall aside by the end of the season and allow Angel to take over. That isn’t overly likely, but it is possible. Stay tuned.
Between the Green Pillars Top 25 Prospects:
# 25: Evan Frederickson
# 24: Cody Adams
#23: Alex Periard
#22: Brent Brewer
#21: Brad Nelson
#20: RJ Seidel
#19: Tim Dillard
# 18: Seth Lintz
# 17: Efrain Nieves
#16: Erik Komatsu
#15: Cody Scarpetta
#14: Omar Aguilar
#13: Cutter Dykstra
#12: Zach Braddock
#11: Caleb Gindl
#10: Jake Odorizzi
#9: Cole Gillespie
#8: Lorenzo Cain
#7: Brett Lawrie
#6: Taylor Green
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This year we’ll be releasing our top 25 list in conjunction with the people over at Bernie’s Crew,
which means the list is going to posted somewhat out of order to match
up with what Jim has for his Top 25. An up-to-date list of the Between the Green Pillars Top 25 can be found at the bottom of the page.
Taylor
Green / 3B / 5’10” 180 LBS / 11/2/86
Taylor Green is the prototypical Brewer hitting prospect in a lot of ways. Taken out of Cypress College in California in the 25th round of the 2005 draft, Green is Canadian by birth. Like so many Brewer positional prospects, his calling card is his bat and the position he’ll eventually play is in question because of his sub-par defense at the hot corner. Still, his bat is good enough that he’ll almost certainly find somewhere to play in the major leagues.
Green’s pro career didn’t get off to a rip-roaring start in rookie ball in 2006, as he OPS’ed .636. When he moved to West Virginia in 2007, that all changed. He hit (.327/.406/.516/.922) with 29 2B, 2 3B and 14 HR while posting an impressive K:BB ratio 65:51 in 397 AB’s. That performance won him the systems player of the year award and rocketed him onto the prospect radar screen for 2008. Moving to the power suppressing FSL, he hardly missed a beat at the late, accumulating a (.289/.382/.443/.825) line. His power suffered a bit (19 2B and 15 HR) but that happens when guys move to Brevard. His plate discipline, which was already good, got even better in 2008, as he walked more times (61) than he struck out (59). His trip to the Arizona Fall League was cut short when he was hit in the face by a pitch, breaking his nose. In 24 AB’s he racked up a .990 OPS, so he wasn’t having any trouble hitting the ball.
Green has good power for a player of his stature, and he’s a left-handed hitter, which is something the Brewers could use at the major league level. He doesn’t have the classic HR power you like to see at third, but his overall hitting game is rounded enough that his power could definitely be playable there. The problem is that like Ryan Braun and Mat Gamel before him, Green is having trouble at the hot corner. He isn’t racking up the error totals that those two did in their time in the minors, but a .929 career fielding percent is still way below average for a 3B. There has been some talk of moving him to 2B, but the Cleveland Indians reportedly took Michael Brantley as the PTBNL in the LaPorta trade over Green because they weren’t convinced that he could play 2B.
If Green cannot play second or third base on a regular basis passably, that is going to limit him to a super utility role. He may well end up in a platoon where someone else hits against lefties and replaces him late in the game defensively, which wouldn’t be the end of the
world, but would limit his value. His plate discipline and left-handed bat would make him an ideal and cheap pinch hitter in that sort of scenario. He is still young, though, and there is time for him to improve defensively and be at least playable in a few positions. He should move to AA in 2009, and it will be interesting to see if he has a power spike comparable to other players who left Brevard for Huntsville. If he does improve his defense and keeps on hitting, the Brewers could start looking for ways to get him in the big league lineup as soon as 2010. Watch his power numbers and fielding percent for signs of improvement.
Between the Green Pillars Top 25 Prospects:
# 25: Evan Frederickson
# 24: Cody Adams
#23: Alex Periard
#22: Brent Brewer
#21: Brad Nelson
#20: RJ Seidel
#19: Tim Dillard
# 18: Seth Lintz
# 17: Efrain Nieves
#16: Erik Komatsu
#15: Cody Scarpetta
#14: Omar Aguilar
#13: Cutter Dykstra
#12: Zach Braddock
#11: Caleb Gindl
#10: Jake Odorizzi
#9: Cole Gillespie
#8: Lorenzo Cain #7: Brett Lawrie
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This year we’ll be releasing our top 25 list in conjunction with the people over at Bernie’s Crew,
which means the list is going to posted somewhat out of order to match
up with what Jim has for his Top 25. An up-to-date list of the Between the Green Pillars Top 25 can be found at the bottom of the page.
Brett
Lawrie / C / 6’0” 190 LBS / 1/18/90
Brett Lawrie was a fitting for former scouting director Jack
Zduriencik’s final #1 overall selection for a lot of reasons. He’s Canadian and
the Brewers have scouted and drafted in Canada more extensively than most other
clubs in recent years. He’s also a guy drafted for his bat and with definite
question marks about where and how he’ll play defensively, another recurring
theme under Zduriencik. The consensus opinion is that Lawrie is going to hit,
but there are major concerns about his ability to stay behind the plate, which
would obviously give him his highest potential value as a hitter because
catchers who can hit are so rare.
While Lawrie has yet to take the field as a pro, he has more
of a track record than your standard high school draftee. For one, he’s
played with the Canadian national junior team since the age of 15 and has
faced professional Dominican pitchers on three separate trips down there. His
last trip to the DR last summer, he hit 8 homers and hit them to all parts of
the park. Lawrie played for Team Canada in the 2008 Summer Olympics, and while
he didn’t have an impressive showing just that fact that they though enough of
him as a high school player to put on the team says something.
One of the upsides of his playing so much with the national
teams is the fact that it gave scouts ample opportunity to see him swing a wood
bat, something they don’t often get to see a high school kid do. He has a very
strong hands and a quick bat, which has led to projections of him as a
potential “plus-plus power” guy. There are concerns that he is too pull happy
at this point in his development, which is something the Brewers will have to
watch and address this season. Details on his plate discipline have been hard
to come by, so judging that is going to have to wait until we see some numbers going
forward.
As much confidence as there is in Lawrie’s ability to hit professional
hitting, there are serious doubts about where he’ll be able to play. He
possesses the physical tools to play catcher (strong arm, quick feet, athletic
body) but is so raw back there that it’s hard to say with any certainty that he
can stick. If he can’t, he’ll probably end up at one of the corner positions.
Third or right would probably be the first possibilities, though there has even
been some talk of moving him to second base. The problem with trying to give
him the time to show his skills at catcher is the strong possibility that his
bat will push him too fast to develop as a receiver and the team will have to
give up on him faster than they would like behind the plate.
For his part, Lawrie expects to move quickly. He’s told
multiple sources that he expects to be in the minors for a “year and a half”
which would put him in the majors before the end of the 2010 season at the age
of 20. To do that, he will have to absolutely kill the ball and establish a
position with amazing speed. Obviously, Lawrie doesn’t lack confidence in
Lawrie, which is something that also comes through in every interview he’s
given. He has the skills to suggest that it’s not all empty boasting and that
he can back it up, but we’ll just have to wait for spring to see just what he
can do. The Brewers may elect to send him to extended spring training and
possibly even to Pioneer league when it opens play in June, but if he’s going
to move as fast as he thinks he can, he’ll be seeing Appleton before mid
summer. If Lawrie shows he can hit pro pitching and play a passable catcher,
expect to see him near or at the top of this list next year.
Between the Green Pillars Top 25 Prospects:
# 25: Evan Frederickson
# 24: Cody Adams
#23: Alex Periard
#22: Brent Brewer
#21: Brad Nelson
#20: RJ Seidel
#19: Tim Dillard
# 18: Seth Lintz
# 17: Efrain Nieves
#16: Erik Komatsu
#15: Cody Scarpetta
#14: Omar Aguilar
#13: Cutter Dykstra
#12: Zach Braddock
#11: Caleb Gindl
#10: Jake Odorizzi
#9: Cole Gillespie
#8: Lorenzo Cain
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